What have the GOP Hawks Wrought?

Washington, DC – The National Iranian American Council, the largest Iranian-American grassroots organization in the United States, strongly condemns Senator Lindsey Graham’s (R-SC) comments that “Iranians are liars” and demands an apology to the Iranian-American community.

The Senator and Presidential hopeful’s comments were given Friday morning to the Southern Republican Leadership Conference via video from Washington.

“Everything I learned about Iranians I learned working in the pool room,” Graham said. “I met a lot of liars, and I know Iranians are liars.”

“The Senator’s repulsive remarks are racist, period,” NIAC President Trita Parsi said. “This type of discourse should have no place in American politics.”

“Graham essentially admits to being a bigot, because nothing says ‘I’m stereotyping’ more than basing judgment of an entire people solely on a handful of interactions in a pool room,” Parsi added.

Senator Graham is also a strong critic of the nuclear negotiations with Iran, having promised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to follow his lead on this vital national security issue.

“Graham’s racist statement raises concerns about his ability to speak on vital national security matters such as the nuclear negotiations with Iran. Because if you judge an entire people based on your experience running a pool hall-liquor store, do you really have the judgment to keep America safe?” Parsi commented. “This is Graham’s ‘I can see Russia from my house’ moment.”

NIAC is demanding an apology from Senator Graham to the Iranian-American community.

“Senator Graham owes the Iranian-American community – one of the most successful communities in the United States – an apology. And all others presidential hopefuls – Republicans and Democrats – should condemn his bigoted comments,” Parsi said.

26 comments:

Senator and 2016 candidate Rand Paul (R-KY) said on Morning Joe Wednesday that the policies of the hawks in his party were at least partly responsible for the rise of ISIS, the Sunni militants currently marauding across Syria and Iraq.

“[Senator] Lindsey Graham (R-SC) would say, ISIS exists because of people like Rand Paul who said let’s not go into Syria,” host Joe Scarborough posed.

“I would say it’s exactly the opposite,” Paul said. “ISIS exists and grew stronger because of the hawks in our party who gave arms indiscriminately, and most of those arms were snatched up by ISIS. These hawks also wanted to bomb [Syrian President Bashar] Assad, which would have made ISIS’ job even easier. They created these people.”

“ISIS is all over Libya, because these saying hawks in my party, they loved Hillary Clinton’s war in Libya, they just wanted more of it,” he continued. “So everything they’ve talked about in foreign policy they’ve been wrong about for 20 years, yet they somehow have the gall to point the finger otherwise.”

Our destruction of Iraq and subsequent mismanagement of it is directly responsible for ISIS’s creation. We destroyed the Ghadaffi regime and abetted reinforcements and arms to flow from Libya to go to Syria. That blew up in our face and McCain was all over the bomb throwing that made things a multiplier-worse.

The GOP and Obama are still at it this very moment; disrupting and arming the opponents to Assad, on point for ISIS.

Rick Santorum touts the same idiotic nonsense of the Right: “ISIS didn’t come about because of ... the arms that America left behind. ISIS came about because they hate everything that we believe in and we stand for,” Santorum added. “I think the idea that we accept now that this tripe from the left that it’s our fault that ISIS exists -- go back to the thousand-year history of Muslim expansionism, and look at some of the horrible things that were done to spread radical Islam. That is not something that America had anything to do with.”

... “go back to the thousand-year history of Muslim expansionism, and look at some of the horrible things that were done to spread radical Islam. "

What was happening in the with Century?

1001 Mahmud, an Afghani and militant Muslim, has secured his rule. He vows to take the word of Allah to the Hindu kingdoms of India every year, by sword and fire.

1008 Sweden's king, Olof Skötonung, converts to Christianity, and when a king converts to Christianity, his subjects also convert.

1010 Division has weakened India. Through the Khyber Pass, Muslims on horseback have been raiding temple towns in northwest India and carrying back to Ghazni as much booty as they can – much of its wealth stolen from temples. The raiding stops after the Indians agree to pay tribute to the Afghani ruler, Mahmud. The Indians begin sending to Ghazni annual trains of elephants laden with gifts.

1015 A 21-year-old Dane, to be known as Canute the Great (Cnut I), has invaded England with a powerful fleet.

1020 Avicenna, (Abu Ali al-Husayn ibn Abd Allah ibn Sina) the greatest thinker and person of medicine of this and surrounding centuries, is forty years-old. He has 17 more years to live, a lifetime in which he will have composed 276 books on medicine, physics, astronomy, chemistry, mathematics, economics and religion. He believes in empiricism and rationalism and thinks scientifically. He has been accused by fellow Muslims of "unbelief," to which he replies: "If I have turned from Him who is blessed by birth, there's no true Muslim left on earth." His "Canon on Medicine" will be translated into Latin and begin influencing Europe in the 12th century – a book of 830 pages. At Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble his work will have a five-star rating.

1022 Putting people to death for heresy has begun in Europe, fourteen said to have been burned to death at the city of Orleans on order of the French king, Robert the Pious.

1034 The archbishop of Milan, Heribert, seizes members of a group that rejects infant baptism and has them burned to death.

1040 The Chola dynasty, now led by Rajendra I (1014-44), ruling from southeast India, has conquered the island of Lanka. In Hindu society in general, wealth has been accumulating at the top. A few princes have thousands of servants and hangers-on. A greater percentage of agriculture is being taken from free peasants, and more of those who work the land are laborers bound to the land, locked in place by their caste – the Shudras.

1060 The Almoravids (al-Murabitun), puritanical Islamic reformers, have amassed a following and an army fired by religious fervor and an interest in booty, and they have moved from their base on the Mauritanian coast and they seize power in Morocco and western Algeria.

1062 The Almoravids found Marrakech.

1066 William I of Normandy ends Anglo-Saxon rule in England and becomes its first Norman king of England. Many French words are to become English words.

1073 Previously Hildebrand had thwarted attempts to make him Pope, and he had proposed what became the choosing of Popes by the College of Cardinals. Now Hildebrand becomes Pope Gregory VII.

1075 Berbers of Morocco, fervent Muslims, declare war on the non-Muslim kingdom and empire of Ghana centered at city of Kumbi.

1077 Pope Gregory VII is pursuing church reform and is in conflict with the "Roman Emperor" in Germanic lands, Henry IV (a descendant of Charlemagne's rule). The issue is Gregory's decree that anyone who accepts a church position offered by a layman will be deposed and any layman who gives a church position to anyone would be excommunicated. Gregory excommunicates and deposes Henry. Nobles relish power taken from Henry. And, to restore himself, Gregory crosses the Alps to Canosso, in Italy, where Gregory grants him absolution – forgiveness.

1080 Pope Gregory again excommunicates and deposes Henry. This time, Henry uses a power that a few kings have in greater amount than does the pope: Henry goes to Italy with an army and takes power in Rome.

1085 Christianity has been expanding against Muslims since Charlemagne took Barcelona in 801. The Christian king of Castile and Galicia, Alfonso VI, has been inviting Christians in Islamic Spain to his kingdom. Now he expands militarily to Toledo, in central Spain. The Christian reconquest of Spain is underway.

1091 Normans were originally hired by Italian principalities as mercenaries. Then the Normans started conquering in southern Italy on their own, and they became rulers accepted by the papacy. Now they conquer Sicily, ending two centuries of Muslim rule there. Arabs are allowed to continue working in public administration.

1094 The kingdom of Aragon expands southward to Valencia.

1095 The Seljuk Turks have been expanding against the empire centered at Constantinople. They have conquered Jerusalem. The Turks were also Muslims, however they did not allow Christians to visit their holy sites. Pope Urban II responds to a call for help from the emperor at Constantinople and organizes what was to become known as the First Crusade. Urban II announces that Christ will lead any army that goes to rescue the Holy Land.

1095 The first wave of the crusades begins, from Sweden into Finland, to convert the Finns to Christianity.

1096 Pope Urban II condemns the crossbow as "hateful to God." There are no firearms as yet, and the crossbow seems too deadly in its ability to pierce chain mail, and too impersonal, unlike the sword and lance, which can be parried up close.

1097 Well-trained knights defeat Muslims near Nicaea, and later in the year the Crusaders reach Antioch.

1099 Jerusalem falls to the Crusaders, who slaughter the city's Jewish and Muslim inhabitants.

Come, fill the cup, and in the fire of spring Your winter-garment of repentance fling: The bird of time has but a little way To flutter-and the bird is on the wing.Ah, Love! could you and I with Him conspire To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire, Would not we shatter it to bits, and then Remold it nearer to the heart's desire!

1028 Canute occupies Norway with a fleet of fifty ships from England, with the help of Norweigan nobles he drives the Norwegian king since 1016, Olaf II Haraldsson, into exile.

1029 Olaf II Haraldsson returns to Norway and falls in battle.

1034 The archbishop of Milan, Heribert, seizes members of a group that rejects infant baptism and has them burned to death.

1040 The Chola dynasty, now led by Rajendra I (1014-44), ruling from southeast India, has conquered the island of Lanka. In Hindu society in general, wealth has been accumulating at the top. A few princes have thousands of servants and hangers-on. A greater percentage of agriculture is being taken from free peasants, and more of those who work the land are laborers bound to the land, locked in place by their caste – the Shudras.

1044 Rulers in China have failed to keep China strong militarily. Tangut (Tibetan) warriors have been making incursions into China. The Tangut occupy China's ethnically diverse northwest, and China buys peace by agreeing to make tribute payments to them as well as to the Khitan of Manchuria, who are still ruling at Beijing.

Santorum added. “I think the idea that we accept now that this tripe from the left that it’s our fault that ISIS exists -- go back to the thousand-year history of Muslim expansionism, and look at some of the horrible things that were done to spread radical Islam. That is not something that America had anything to do with.”

Santorum foolishly detaches US history from European history. The proposition is absurd and Santorum is an illiterate on US history. It seems to me that I was taught in high school that The US Bill of Rights borrowed heavily from The Magna Carta. A quick look on Google and voila”:

Trial By juryCriminal prosecutions pose a threat to citizens, because conviction usually results in the loss of some, if not all, freedom. King John promised the people in the Magna Carta that he would not abuse his power by imprisoning them unless their peers found the punishment just. This declaration became part of the American Constitution, as well. The Sixth Amendment ensures American citizens receive a fair trial by jury in all criminal proceedings. This jury must be impartial and made up of fellow citizens living within the same district of the alleged crime.Due ProcessSection 39 of the Magna Carta contains the law of the land provision. King John protected the people from prosecution for crimes, unless done so according to the prevailing law. This provision made arbitrary prosecution illegal. In the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, the founders incorporated a modern version of the same language. The American Constitution prevents the national government from taking citizens’ “life, liberty or property," except when done according to due process of law. This statement, known as the due process clause, provides Americans with assurance that legal action against them has to follow a familiar and understandable pattern.Cruel and Unusual PunishmentMagna Carta’s section 20 informed the English that the royalty could not inflict cruel punishment against citizens. The fear was that monarchs would punish people so severely that it would become a means of depriving individuals of freedom. King John agreed that punishment should be in harmony with the gravity of the offense. The Eighth Amendment includes the same principle. Excessive bail amounts and excessive fines are unconstitutional under this amendment.

Magnificent Ronald and the Founding Fathers of al Qaeda

“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s founding fathers.” — Ronald Reagan while introducing the Mujahideen leaders to media on the White house lawns (1985). During Reagan’s 8 years in power, the CIA secretly sent billions of dollars of military aid to the mujahedeen in Afghanistan in a US-supported jihad against the Soviet Union. We repeated the insanity with ISIS against Syria.